A man with mental health problems threatened to skin his wife with a knife.

Gary Hughes from Deeside brandished a kitchen knife and his wife thought she was going to be stabbed.

Hughes said to suffer psychotic episodes made worse by cannabis and amphetamine use, admitted an affray charge and was jailed for 21 months.

Judge Rhys Rowlands, sitting at Mold Crown Court, said that perhaps the case of Hughes should serve as a warning to those “misguided people” who believed cannabis was safe.

Reports on the defendant, he said, made “quite worrying reading” and it was clear that from time to time he was subject of psychotic episodes.

Hughes started smoking cannabis at 15

Those were likely to be secondary to the misuse of cannabis and amphetamine.

Hughes, he said, had started smoking cannabis at the age of 15.

It was a long term misuse of the drug and he had progressed to taking amphetamine too.

Sadly the incident was not out of character because he had previously been involved in a similar incident against his wife.

Hughes, 58, at the time of Leyton Court in Connah’s Quay, admitted an affray charge following the incident in August.

The judge said that he would be subject to supervision from the probation service on his release.

The judge imposed a five year restraining order on Hughes

The maximum sentence for affray was three years, he had pleaded guilty, and it was not possible to impose an extended sentence, the judge explained.

Whether or not the psychiatric services assisted him on his release was a matter for them, but the judge said that the defendant was in need of assistance on his release.

He was also made the subject of a five year restraining order not to approach his wife Janice Hughes or her adult son, and he is not to enter Leyton Court.

The judge said that it had been a quite terrifying ordeal for them.

His wife had reached 'the end of her tether'

He had brandished a knife, had other items on him including a scissors and a dart like object, he had made threats and also made some bizarre allegations against his wife.

In a victim impact statement she had told how she could not put up with his behaviour any more.

She had reached “the end of her tether” because of his conduct.

Prosecuting barrister Simon Mills said that the couple had been married for 19 years but about ten years ago the defendant developed some sort of mental difficulties and Mrs Hughes described the last two years as particularly difficult.

But the incident on August 5 was the most frightening.

He shouted: 'I am going to skin you all'

In the early hours he began to argue with her and asked to see the cheque book even though the couple did not have one.

The prosecutor said that in the kitchen she was confronted by the defendant with a large kitchen knife being held about a metre from her.

He told her to leave the house and threatened to skin her if she did not go.

She asked if she could change from her pyjamas but he refused to allow her to do so and she and her son shut themselves in the living room.

He continued to shout threats “I am going to skin you all” and “you are all dead” and they took the view that the safest course of action was to call the police.

Ceri Evans, defending, said that Hughes had previous convictions but there had been a long gap in his offending behaviour.